1 Chapter 1: Little Human

The moon shone, its rays falling like chiffon woven from silk and illuminating the rugged hillsides. Huge dark lines on the hillsides, like the wounds inflicted by a creature, filled those who saw them with gloom.

Beneath this beautiful landscape, this gloomy region polluted the whole world and created a darkness that even the moonlight could not illuminate. It was a nest of insects that even humanity had forgotten.

When the moon was at its zenith, voices came from behind the slopes. Huge hills, pulled by hundreds of big cars, pulled up onto the slope.

Meanwhile, small lights appeared in the darkness. Hundreds of people ran up the slope with shouts of joy. The slopes were steep and covered with sharp stones, but no one cared about them. They were doing their best to survive, even though they were no better than the lowest insects in this region ignored by humanity.

And the only way for them to survive was a little trash in these huge hills.

Trumble!

Dozens of men appeared around the hills. They were holding big boards in their hands. Even when they saw hundreds of people running toward them like hungry dogs, their expressions did not change. They propped the boards under the carts and dumped the tons of garbage they were carrying down the hillsides.

Like a tsunami wave, the garbage poured down the slopes. Those who could not escape in time were swallowed up by the garbage while the smart ones avoided it and started rummaging around. Old and young, male and female, desperately digging through the garbage.

Among them was a thin and small child.

He looked like five years old. His small face was obscured by the dust and mud. The only visible thing was his determination to ignore all the pain and keep on digging.

The clothes he was wearing were just scraps of cloth left over from his adult clothes, made of pieces of cloth tied together. It was wrapped around his body like a mummy.

The boy ignored his bloodied fingers and continued to rummage through the foul-smelling garbage. After rummaging for a while, his fingernails hit something quite spongy. His eyes flashed like stars in the sky, but he quickly went back to his old self.

He twisted his body and created a screen so that others could not see. When he looked down at what he had touched, a small smile formed on his face.

It was rotten flesh the size of a palm.

Insects moved inside it, but this did nothing but make the smile on his face bigger.

The little boy quickly picked up the meat and placed it on his chest. Then he looked around and made his way to the outer part of the garbage dump. He was particularly careful not to attract attention. The level of morality here was equal to the amount of food that came out of the dump.

Those who couldn't find food would directly target those weaker than themselves. Luckily for the little boy, he escaped the garbage dump without attracting anyone's attention. In a place where competition was so high, murder and theft were common.

Arguments, especially between children, often ended in murder. So the little boy was extra careful.

The little boy was of course aware of this. So he made sure he was safe before he ate his food. He picked up a sharp piece of metal and hid it around his waist. Then he sat down in a dark place and removed the meat from his breast.

The meat looked quite miserable. It was a piece of meat that even animals, let alone villagers, would be disgusted to eat. But its value in this garbage dump was more than the lives of a few people.

He did not bother to cut the meat or clean it from insects. He just put it in his mouth and started chewing. As he carefully chewed the wet and disgusting piece of meat, his attention was focused somewhere.

Five meters away stood a little girl staring at him. Although her body was even smaller than his, there was no trace of fear in her eyes. She was staring at the meat in her mouth without even blinking.

The child's expression changed instantly. As he increased the speed of his chewing, he picked up a stone and threw it toward the girl. The stone hit the girl right in the leg. Meanwhile, the boy swallowed the meat in his mouth without chewing and left.

This was a cruel shithole.

Even though the boy had injured the girl, he did not feel the slightest remorse.

After swallowing his food, he didn't need to do anything more. So he went to his nest of barrels and tried to go to bed. But a crowd in the center of the dump attracted his attention. Children had formed a circle around a rather fat man.

A fat man.

The little boy had never seen such a towering being before.

The most fleshy person in the garbage dump was the leader of the garbage dump. Only his bones were not visible. But this man seemed to be almost twenty times as fleshy.

The little boy succumbed to his curiosity and went towards the fat man.

The little boy was overcome with curiosity and went towards the fat man. As he got closer, he saw that the fat man was accompanied by a squad of dozens of soldiers and the biggest force in the dumpsite, Leader Harald, and his squad.

The leader Herald was a scrawny man, about one hundred and eighty centimeters tall, and had a rather ominous appearance. A few men around the same age as himself surrounded him. They kept most of the resources from the dump to themselves.

Now he was talking to the fat man with a sycophantic expression.

"I will take a few potential recruits from among you to the settlement, but don't think I am here to save your worthless lives! Once trained, these people will open up to the world outside the wall!"

The fat man's first sentence filled those around him with excitement, but then they all shuddered. The Wall. It was the only thing that protected humanity from the chaos of the outside world. It was so important to humanity that every month people held a ceremony to show their gratitude to the wall.

Of course, this did not apply to the garbage dump.

There was so much danger outside the wall that even the people in the garbage dump could not ignore it.

But there were still those among them who were desperate.

"Those who want to join, stay here. The others get out of my sight!"

Soon the circle around the fat man thinned considerably. Out of a hundred or two hundred children, only fifty remained. It was not known why, but all the children around the fat man were orphans. They were the vermin at the bottom of the garbage dump.

The fat man looked at the children around him and clicked his tongue. Then he looked nervously at the Herald standing behind him.

"We follow the previous procedure. For every child we take in, you will receive two kilos of grain. If any of the children are useful, we will give you more. Now get lost."

Without saying anything, Herald bowed his head and hurried away. The smile on his face went unnoticed as he bowed his head as he walked away.

"Look at me, you little bastards!" The fat man took a small glass bottle from one of the soldiers behind him and showed it to the children. Although it was dimly lit, the pink liquid inside was quite visible. "Whoever is left standing after finishing this bottle will be entitled to come with me."

"Who will be the first?"

The fat man looked around with piercing eyes. One of the children suddenly stepped forward. He had a very small and thin body. His face was black with mud and dust particles. After looking carefully at the fat man, he turned his head towards the bottle. He blinked his eyes and pursed his lips.

Then he held out his hands.

The fat man looked at the little boy in surprise and handed the bottle to his tiny hands. When the child took the bottle, he looked up and looked into the fat man's eyes.

"Is something wrong?"

The fat man asked. This little man was brave enough to look him in the eye without flinching.

"If I succeed, will I go hungry?" the little boy asked in a shaky voice before uncapping the bottle.

The fat man laughed. "Believe me, son, if you succeed, food will be the least of your worries."

"Got it."

The little boy didn't ask anything else.

He raised the bottle to his head and downed it in one go.

One second passed.

Two seconds passed...

Five seconds passed...

After ten seconds of relative calm, the little boy began to tremble violently. He felt a thousand needles sticking into his flesh at the same time. But he endured without making a sound. After about half a minute, the shaking stopped and his body felt as fresh as if he had been in cold water.

The little boy looked at the fat man, ignoring the sweat beading on his forehead.

"Did I pass?"

"You passed."

He nodded to the fat man.

The little boy breathed a sigh of relief and walked behind the fat man. As he was quite calm, he managed to attract the attention of the surrounding soldiers. However, he did not pay any attention to them and looked expressionlessly at the children in the line.

After a successful first pass, the children boldly threw themselves at the bottles of pink liquid in the soldiers' hands. They were all very excited and fast. Most of them took the bottle without even hesitating. A few started drinking after examining the others.

In about twenty seconds, about fifty bottles were finished.

A second passed...

Nothing had happened.

After five seconds, several children suddenly started shaking. This was met with excitement by the others in the first seconds. Because the little boy's body also trembled. But this trembling seemed to be quite different.

As the children shivered rapidly, their veins swelled considerably. So swollen that they resembled a map of a sewer.

Boom!

Soon the veins could take no more and burst. The children fell to the ground screaming. The blood spread rapidly and formed a small puddle on the floor.

The children watching them froze.

Soon screams erupted from other places. Half of the forty children collapsed in a pool of blood, while blood poured from the seven orifices of several of the remaining ones.

After a minute, only a dozen children were left standing.

They were all scared.